Friday, March 24, 2006

The 2006 San Diego County Fair opens June 10, and still unresolved is whether off-duty law enforcement officers can carry their weapons inside the fairgrounds.

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Off-duty law-enforcement officers routinely carry their weapons and are expected to respond to a disturbance or other situation. Fairgrounds officials are concerned that an off-duty officer responding to an incident in civilian dress could pose a threat to other officers and to the public's safety.

The Deputy Sheriff's Association of San Diego County and the San Diego Police Officers Association, along with the police officers associations in Escondido and Oceanside, disagree.

"An off-duty officer should be able to carry weapons anywhere," said James Duffy, president of the deputies' association. "We're an asset to public safety."

These anti-gun types actually consider off-duty cops to be a threat to public safety! Folks, if I was one of those cops, I'd be posted day and night outside the fair, and the organizer's homes just waiting for some traffic violation.

I'd also be so insulted that I'd make sure that if a call or alarm went out from either, I'd first stop at the nearest Krispy Cream to fortify myself before answering the call.

While I have a hard time arguing with that, I also have a hard time justifying letting retired law-enforcement officers carry but not California concealed-carry permit holders, even if federal law says to let retired peace officers carry. The deputies may well be an "asset to public safety," but so, too are the people who go through the arduous process to get their license to carry -- and that's been shown to be the case in pretty much every state that has gone to shall-issue, in the form of lower rates of certain violent crimes after the respective states passed their concealed-carry laws.It would be wise to let the retired peace officers carry, I think -- but it would be wrong not to let concealed-permit holders do the same. I know, I know...they have special training civilians don't, they have more experience with their firearms, andonandonandon (and actually, that last thing isn't always the case)...but it reeks of favoritism, and elitism too. Such isn't exactly rare in California when it comes to how civilian gun owners are regarded vs. the good folks behind the badges, but still, it's wrong, and Californians should not stand for it...but, of course, they probably will...

Unorganized Militia Propaganda Corps

About Me

I am a very opinionated guy, Texan and quite proud of it. I lean toward the right politically but have a few libertarian tendencies that my conservative brothers and sisters might not agree with. I like guns, old country music and a lot of other things.

Essential Reading

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty -- so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator -- and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.-- Cesare Beccaria, in On Crimes And Punishments, later quoted by Thomas Jefferson

Echo

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.-- Alexander Hamilton